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Submitted by Vastet on March 5, 2012 - 4:56pm.

In the last month, I've suddenly been told that I have an "epic voice", or something along those lines. I've been trying to figure two things out. The first is whether or not it's true, the second being what to do about it if so.
Obviously I can't ask people their views on my voice without a sound bite, which I'm currently too lazy to assemble (in part because I'm not sure I believe it yet).
But I can ask for some advice/input on where to go with it if it pans out.
I put a bit of thought into making vlogs, but I'm not sure I'd be able to create enough content to satisfy consumers on a continuing basis.
I thought of maybe doing commentary ala Day [9] and see where that goes (if you don't know who that is no problem, he's a former pro gamer that focuses significantly on StarCraft 2, with strategies and heavy insight, you can easily find him on youtube).
It dawned on me that perhaps if it is a great voice that maybe I could donate its use to the RRS whenever it may be useful.

I've been told I have a great radio voice, and I hate my voice. I used it begrudgingly, so the best question I can think of... Do you like your voice? Do you agree with the assessment and if you don't agree, can you at least see it?

I saw what they were saying, from time to time. I think though they were referring to my inflection and not my tone. I actually don't think any of you have ever heard my real voice. It's much deeper and requires me to talk low, somewhere along the lines I adopted a louder voice.

If you like your voice and you agree, you'll have fun using it in a commercial manner.

It sounds from your post you are talking about lending your voice for adds. Maybe, but just like any other business you may be good or even great, but getting to the top is damned hard and most people wont make it. It is not to say you shouldn't try if you want to, but with any business the higher up you go, especially at the national corporate level, the fewer spots there are and the more competition there is.

You could try putting together a tape and hitting the local radio and tv stations and tell them they can hire you for the local adds. You can also send clips of your voice all over the nation to tv and radio stations. It wont hurt certainly.

Give it a shot but always remember if you don't end up making a living doing it, most people work for someone else. Who you are is far more important to me than what you do. If you are a decent honest person, thats what counts. You might get lucky, good luck.

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."ObamaCheck out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under BrianJames Rational Poet also on twitter under Brianrrs37

I've been told that I could do radio although I think my voice is on par with a mumbling version of Nicholas Cage as some people have hinted at a few times. I have been doing voices for years also like some of the Simpsons characters, Family Guy characters like Stewie and Cleveland and random other personalities. I've contacted Blizzard in the past and they used some of my peon and other orc voices as a template for Warcraft. They ended up hiring someone else for the finished product, but it was kind of cool to give them a small jumping off point to work with. My impressions were how I got my first girlfriend to fall in love with me actually; my personality helped develop our relationship. These days, I keep a majority of my voices tucked away and just focus on doing vlogs ocassionally even though no one watched them, but who cares, it's for my benefit anyway.

I'll say this much as far as your voice is concerned; have an angle and a strong dynamic in how you present it. If you intend to do radio or something like it, focus on clearing your head before speaking on a topic so that you don't stumble or say "uhh" a lot because people get sick of that; they want confidence. There are a lot of approaches to go about this because I'm sure you don't have any set plans regarding how to utilize your voice, but yeah just keep experimenting with different aspects on how to use it and see what you come up with.

"When the majority believes in what is false, the truth becomes a quest." - Me

If this is the blog post to brag about voice talent, I guess I could say I do a pretty good Sicilian Union Boss/hitman accent, but I suck terribly at radio show banter/smalltalk. The thing is, while I find many accents easy to mimic, including Chinese (most of my doctors are Chinese), I can only do it for 'dramatic' effect, rather than 'sitcom' or 'slapstick' effect.

"(epithet), kid; your mother needs you like a moose needs a fuckin' hat rack." -"Mr. Rabinowitz", Requiem for a Dream

"Son of a bitch!" -Irish-Catholic Prosecutor at Law & Order.

Vastet: what direction are you looking to take it in? I have zero advice to offer on radio shtuff, but drama-wise... well, you note something specific you are interested in, I can likely give plenty. (Another words, what type of roles would you look forward to doing in drama, etc)

The first thing to learn would be how to practice your lines in front of a mirror.

addendum-without-edit: someone appears to be backing up/upgrading the website again /sigh

“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)

Do you want to be a voice for atheism? I don't currently have a concept but you could toy with making a promo video for Atheism United. Do you do video editing?

I'm certainly willing to give it a try.
I don't/haven't done much editing over the years, but I have done some. Big thing is lack of equipment. My PS3 does have a somewhat basic audio/visual editor, but that's all I have to work with at the moment.

As to performing (@Kap), I've put even less thought into that. I can't say I care much what kind of role I'd play or what genre it was in, I'd take what was offered and give it my best.

Do you want to be a voice for atheism? I don't currently have a concept but you could toy with making a promo video for Atheism United. Do you do video editing?

I'm certainly willing to give it a try. I don't/haven't done much editing over the years, but I have done some. Big thing is lack of equipment. My PS3 does have a somewhat basic audio/visual editor, but that's all I have to work with at the moment. As to performing (@Kap), I've put even less thought into that. I can't say I care much what kind of role I'd play or what genre it was in, I'd take what was offered and give it my best.

That's probably all that a person needs in acting

“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)

Vastet, do you have any examples of your voice posted online? You make me curious. Let us hear some epicness

Otherwise it's hard to tell. We probably can't tell anyway, the recording equipment really matters and even then you can expect 50/50 ratio of love/hate feedback, that's the normal state of things. Just compare Seth from TTA how he sounds IRL on a convention (IMO a perfectly ordinary voice) and how he sounds in his studio. (IMO a whole lot better, a truly heart-warming former Christian radio guy's voice)

Anyway, whatever your voice is, people tend to worry about their voices more than they need to, because it's theirs. My voice is probably useless for that purpose, due to lack of rhythm, emotional flatness and somewhat hyponasal accent (chronical catarrh of the past 12 years or so). But still I've had a positive feedback after an interview done with me. (game development stuff) I suppose one half of the art is voice acting practice and the second half is just reconciling yourself with the idea of other people listening to that terrible voice.

I don't currently have any examples. I've been toying with the idea of doing something game related to get a sound bite out, but I can be a bit obsessive about quality, and don't want to do something half assed just to test one thing when I can test more with more effort. Problem is largely equipment. I can record video/audio, and I can do some basic editing, but what I'd really like to do requires extra equipment to record gameplay and edit it into a vid for review purposes. Anyone know anything about that kind of software/hardware? Specifically cost, quality, etc. Last time I recorded myself gaming I was using a VCR. rofl.
The best option would be capable of recording gameplay off a console and/or a PC into a common digital format.

I don't currently have any examples. I've been toying with the idea of doing something game related to get a sound bite out, but I can be a bit obsessive about quality, and don't want to do something half assed just to test one thing when I can test more with more effort. Problem is largely equipment. I can record video/audio, and I can do some basic editing, but what I'd really like to do requires extra equipment to record gameplay and edit it into a vid for review purposes. Anyone know anything about that kind of software/hardware? Specifically cost, quality, etc. Last time I recorded myself gaming I was using a VCR. rofl. The best option would be capable of recording gameplay off a console and/or a PC into a common digital format.

I know nothing about consoles. But I know lots of guys in freeware game development and they usually just use a cracked version of Fraps.